


Cause and Effect

by myhopeandangel



Series: Alright Goodnight [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Death Threats, First Meetings, Hate Crimes, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, References to Drugs, Vampire Na Jaemin, briefly mentioned, in which i explain jenos life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhopeandangel/pseuds/myhopeandangel
Summary: It wasn’t always like this.Before he screwed his life over, Jeno was the star student, the cool friend everyone wanted.The pride of his family.And so when he graduated at last, he had thought things would fall into place naturally, fitting into his life just as things always had.How could he get it so wrong?(Jeno's first meeting with the ever elusive Na Jaemin.)
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Series: Alright Goodnight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762417
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	Cause and Effect

**Author's Note:**

> a prequel(?) to A Vampire and His Client  
> i liked the universe so i wanted to write this to expand on it, even if just a tiny bit (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
> 
> note that there are mentions/references of hate crimes and homophobia! 
> 
> really, really minor renhyuck if you squint

_ It wasn’t always like this.  _

Jeno falls into his couch, one hand on his phone as he flicks through his many unread messages. 

_ Before he screwed his life over, Jeno was the star student, the cool friend everyone wanted. _

_ The pride of his family.  _

None of them are important. Some are from his old classmates, pestering him for a class reunion. Some are from his creditors chasing for payment. Jeno doesn’t respond to any of the texts, only skimming through them before closing his eyes in irritation.

_ And so when Jeno graduated at last, he had thought things would fall into place naturally, fitting into his life just as things always had. _

How could he get it so wrong?

  
  


Jeno is down on his knees, sucking a dubious officer off behind the door of his police cruiser. It’s slimy and wrinkly, and Jeno has to hold back a gag when the officer pushes his head all the way in till all Jeno could feel was the itchy scratch of pubic hair. 

When the officer comes, there’s a weird fruity aftertaste and Jeno immediately spits it out by the side of the road just to stop himself from throwing up.

The officer merely laughs at him, throwing down a few pathetic fives before pulling up his pants and speeding off. Probably to scam some other naive kids who don’t have enough streetsmarts in them to discern real from fake.

Jeno used to be one of them too.

Dusting himself off, Jeno grabs the fives off the ground and throws them into his sling bag, right next to the bag of crack the officer had so kindly let him keep. The money is barely enough for a day’s meal but he can make it stretch. 

Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.

It takes Jeno ten minutes by foot to reach his apartment, a run-down housing right next to other similar shabby buildings in the area. He finds a note taped to his door, and Jeno rolls his eyes because he knows what it is.

Another  _ love letter  _ from one of his beloved neighbours, how cute. 

Crumpling it into a ball, he throws it into the bin from the doorway, and kicks his shoes off before entering. 

Some people have too much to spend. They’re lonely and bored, so they resort to these kinds of useless hobbies. Threats aren’t going to frighten him off.

It’s almost sad, really.

Jeno’s cooking a pathetic pot of instant ramyeon when his phone buzzes with a notification. He’s been getting that a lot these days. Some messages are obviously scams, meant for the soon-to-be lovers of a Nigerian prince, but some are a little more threatening.

Like the following one:

_ You’re next. _

Maybe Jeno’s supposed to feel scared by it. Maybe he should scream and cry.

He doesn’t.

Sliding the message to the left, he presses the ‘delete’ option and chucks his phone somewhere onto the couch.

Only a coward sends threats over the phone.

  
  


“No thoughts, head empty.”

Donghyuck sputters at that, concealing his obnoxious laughter behind his hand. Jeno shrugs and leans back into his couch, one hand tapping away on his crossed legs. 

The room stinks of weed and the sweat of two grown bodies mingling in the heat. The television is on but none of them are watching. It’s just shapeless blobs running across the blurry screen because Donghyuck stumbled into it once during one of their crazier sessions, and Jeno never had the time nor money to get it fixed. 

Taking another drag, Jeno finds himself practically melting into the greasy, oil-stained couch. It’s a little disgusting but Jeno doesn’t get high to care about shit like that. He gets high to take his head off things. 

“Hey.” He hears Donghyuck calling him distantly. 

Turning to face him, Jeno tilts his head in question.

There’s a bit of silence before Donghyuck says what’s on his mind. 

“Wanna call Renjun over?”

Jeno snorts at him, throwing him a glance. “Huang Renjun? The starving artist? I thought you broke things off with him.”

Donghyuck flips him off lazily. 

“He has a studio, Jen. He’s richer than both our broke asses combined.” Then he crushes his cigarette into the ashtray and Jeno groans because he knows what’s going to come. “Plus that dick is too good to _ not _ miss.”

When Donghyuck grabs his phone and shuffles off to the bathroom, Jeno reaches for the remote and turns the volume all the way up. His neighbours can yell at him later for all he cares. For now, he just wants to close his eyes and drown his thoughts out. 

But happy times never last - a lesson Jeno has learnt painfully. 

His phone lights up with an unknown number calling him, playing the jazzy tune to a song from Donghyuck’s old band. Part of him wants to take the annoying bastard head-on, but another, more timid, part of him decides to let the melody play on until the screen fades to black. 

Sometimes, Jeno feels like he can take on the world. Other times, he feels like the world wants him dead.

A few minutes pass, and in comes a new message. 

_ Ignoring me? You’re dead, bitch. _

Jeno takes another lazy drag.

There’s got to be more to life than playing hide and seek with strangers in the dark, Jeno thinks. Why him, anyway? Who did he ever offend?

The blare of the news sheds new light on the situation.

_ “Another man found brutally murdered…” _

_ “Victim of a suspected hate crime…” _

Jeno laughs wryly. So it’s one of  _ those _ bastards. Too much time and not enough attention and so they always run amok, causing havoc left and right without a care for others.

Pathetic worms. 

Jeno closes his eyes, wishing to just fade away.

  
  
  


It’s another mundane monday evening when Jeno clocks out of his shift at the neighbourhood convenience store. It should have gone as all other mondays do, but there’s a strange feeling in the air as he pulls his jacket closer to his body, snuggling into the warmth. It’s cold, for one. And though it’s not at all unusual at this time of the year, it's a kind of chill Jeno’s not used to.

Jeno shakes those thoughts out of his head, heading down the familiar path home. There’s nothing unusual going on, just the same few hooligans and delinquents smoking by the roadside, playing poker or whatever it is that kids do these days. 

They eye him as he walks by, but otherwise remain on their side of the street. Jeno’s used to this. You’d have to if you want to live in  _ this _ town.

As he nears his home, the streets turn darker, quieter, and eventually thins into a narrow strip. The town mayor says there’s not enough funds for road work, but everyone’s heard a version of that story a thousand times by now. Even Jeno who hates math can put two and two together.

Not enough funding my ass. 

Anyone who knows  _ anything _ knows what the mayor spends it on. First class flights, expensive properties and cars, prostitutes. Not that Jeno thinks there’s anything wrong with the last part. He just feels bad for the girls (and guys, he thinks wryly) that had to suck his wrinkly old dick.

The lighting overhead flickers, broken from harsh weather conditions and maybe even from gang fights that break out every other week. 

Jeno keeps his head down, keeping his pace brisk. 

Because even on  _ this _ side of town, there are areas much sketchier than others. 

It’s funny, really, how even in a community of outcasts and society’s rejects, there’s still a desire for hierarchy and segregation. 

In  _ this _ part of town, anyone who’s even worth a penny had to give something up at one point. Whether it be a family, a job, or even love. 

Jeno may have had them once, but it’s all in the past now. Don’t drag the past with you into the future, that’s what Jeno lives by. Yet sometimes, when he looks down at his hands, he can’t help the sad twinge of emotions that spring in his heart. 

It’s bittersweet.

Jeno hated his job back then, working at a construction site. The guys were a rough bunch, and they often smoked heavily in their groups, betting on stupid shit when they had nothing better to do. It’s thanks to them that Jeno picked up his habits, but he figures he would’ve succumbed eventually either ways. Donghyuck had his fair share of habits anyway.

But despite that, Jeno found them more open-minded than some of his other peers. They didn’t care that he was gay, didn’t call him slurs. They treated him like they’d treat their buddies, and they were always down for a quick fuck when things got too stressful for just a puff. No strings attached, just the way Jeno liked.

When Jeno thinks of the life his parents wanted him to lead - entering a stable office job for some big corporation, he realises he’d never be able to live as freely as he does now. His every move would always be scrutinised and compared, his existence equating to nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet, just another corporate slave. 

Just like school all over again. 

Jeno would be the best worker, his mom had praised, but he would have felt like shit if he had followed his parents’ wishes. 

So he didn’t. He packed his bags and moved, with nothing more than savings from his part-time work and a helping hand from Donghyuck - his only remaining friend from school.

At least in this part of town, everyone minds their own business. And in turn, well, Jeno minds his own too.

The broken street lamps flicker erratically overhead.

Shadows.

Jeno may not always have his best interests at heart, but he does think about his life sometimes, contrary to what Donghyuck likes to say. And this, this is a very good time to reconsider the value of his life.

“Fucking finally.”

The voice is muffled and indistinct, filtered through the cloth mask the guy’s wearing. He brandishes his knife wildly, eyes delirious as he watches Jeno. A little red warning flag pops up at the back of his mind, saying this is the perpetrator of the previous murders. The hate crimes. 

Bastard.

Jeno doesn’t waste his breath and makes a break for it immediately, heart palpitating and adrenaline rushing. This sucks, he really looked forward to unwinding after a day’s work.

“Come back here, fucker!”

Rounding a few corners, Jeno vanishes into the shadows, hoping it’s enough to lose him. Thank god for his bad habits. Without knowledge of the little paths and hidden alleys, Jeno doesn’t think he would have lost the bastard.

He pants and gasps for air in the narrow alley, one hand holding onto a pipeline for balance. It’s not the first time Jeno thinks he’s lucky for all the muscles and stamina built up from his previous job, but it sure feels like it.

Distantly, he hears the irritating muffled voice of the bastard calling for him to show himself, but people are beginning to watch, peeking their heads out of the windows.

That’s one downside to this life. No one cares unless you’re being chased by a fucking psycho. Anything less than that and you’re on your own.

Patting his pocket for his phone, Jeno curses and swears under his breath. He must have dropped it during the chase. Great, how is he going to reach Donghyuck now?

Pulling the jacket around him closer, Jeno shuts his eyes and breathes. It fucking sucks, and it’s still way too cold. On top of that, he has absolutely no idea how to get himself out of this situation. There’s no way he’s leaving till he’s sure the psycho is gone.

“My, aren’t you shivering like a little lamb.”

A deep voice calls out to him from the shadows.

Jeno flinches against his will. Distantly, he wonders just what the hell it is, but his brain is addled with an adrenaline-driven haze. It beckons him closer. Jeno knows he shouldn’t, yet against all his instincts, his legs move on their own accord, bringing him one step closer to the darkness. 

And what a beautiful darkness it is. 

An elegant hand reaches out to him, tilting his face up to meet golden eyes. They’re bright and glowing in the dark, searching his face for… whatever it wants. Then they flit down to his lips, his neck and rake down his entire body as if assessing him. 

Blood rushes to his face, painting it red all over as he stares back at the eyes, almost challengingly.

There’s a sort of thrill that courses through him when his gaze lingers a little longer on Jeno’s neck than it should. It’s ridiculous how much Jeno wants _ it  _ now _. _

It’s fucking ridiculous, but Jeno isn’t thinking straight.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline rushing things along, but the words tumble out faster than Jeno can process them.

“I want…”

The figure then fully emerges from the shadow, with only the moonlight above touching his every feature. Ethereal is how Jeno would describe him. The epitome of a celestial being. Jeno’s mesmerised.

His hair is a soft shade of pink, framing his perfect face in a way that seems to accentuate all his best features. Jeno trails his eyes down to his lips, a deep cherry red that entices even without effort. 

Jeno wants them on him.

There’s a light chuckle, and Jeno is entranced by the low tone of his voice. “Such a strong effect. Fascinating.”

The words should mean something to Jeno, they should spark a response in him, but they don’t. He can only stare as a latent desire builds up in him. 

“What’s your name, darling?”

“Jeno,” he breathes. His blood is singing in his ears, and the ethereal being glances at him with a mix of interest and amusement in his luminescent eyes. When he smiles, the sharp of his teeth glints purposefully in the moonlight.

“Well, Jeno. I’m Jaemin, pleased to meet you.”

Then Jeno feels the warm touch of Jaemin’s fingers trail down his jaw, down until it reaches the base of his neck, pressing his long fingers into unblemished skin. There's a flash of a cheshire cat smile before Jeno feels the heat of Jaemin’s breath fanning over his cold skin. 

Then his teeth are on his throat, scraping and nipping relentlessly until all Jeno can feel is his slow descent to an otherworldly bliss amid a searing pain. 

_ Oh. _

As the thoughts in his head grow hazier, so does the view of the world in front of him. Jeno doesn’t think drugs can ever bring him to the same high again. He feels like he’s floating, and distantly, he thinks he really is for his feet no longer touches the ground.

Jaemin continues to lap at Jeno’s new wound, licking up the rest of whatever it is before finally pulling away, hand still holding onto Jeno.

He must be going stupid, Jeno thinks. He narrowly escaped death only to waltz into the hands of another kind. But it’s different. Jeno feels bliss, not fear.

With his body lying limply in Jaemin’s warm embrace, Jeno finds himself too fatigued to move. If death comes for him today, at least Jeno can die knowing its face.

Jaemin laughs merrily, and Jeno flits his eyes up to the movement. There’s a smear of dark crimson along his own plump cherry lips, looking even more alluring as it is. Jeno follows the way Jaemin’s pink tongue flicks out to lick at it, dragging it slowly along the bottom of his lip. The tremble that courses through his body makes Jeno part his mouth in want.

He  _ wants. _

But Jaemin is too calm and composed. He acts like he’s done this a thousand times, merely brushing his soft lips against Jeno teasingly. 

“You’re surprisingly cute, darling.” Jaemin pats his cheek, surely rosy from all his yearning and thirst. There’s a teasing lilt to his voice and a hint of promise in his golden eyes when he speaks again. “I wonder if you’ll cry the next time?”

And in a hazy instant, Jaemin disappears into the shadow. 

Maybe it’s all a dream.

  
  
  


“What the fuck.”

Donghyuck’s standing over him, bags of beer in both hands. 

“You look like shit.”

Jeno blinks up at him blearily, moving his head around as he adjusts to his surroundings. He’s in his house, but he’s lying on the cold hard ground. 

_ Ouch. _

Reaching up to touch his neck, Jeno feels the tenderness of a wound. Did he get into a fight? Was he mugged the night before? Patting around his pocket, he finds his wallet but not his phone. 

His head hurts.

Donghyuck walks over his body and sets the cans of cheap beer onto the table before pulling Jeno up. His body aches all over from sleeping on the hard floor. It sucks. When they make their way over to the greasy couch, Donghyuck drops Jeno headfirst into it without a care and plops down next to him, kicking his legs up to rest on the coffee-stained coffee table.

He glances at Jeno in concern, though it’s only slight and nonchalant. “You look like you could use a smoke.”

Jeno waves him away, not at all keen to try it now after resisting for so many years. “Why are you here?”

“You didn’t respond to my texts.” Donghyuck says simply, then proceeds to light his cigarette up. From his happier attitude, Jeno figures he must have spent the previous night at Renjun’s. “I should be used to it by now but you’d usually read them, at least. What happened?”

That’s the problem. He doesn’t recall.

All he can remember is being chased by some psycho and everything after is but a mystery to him. Maybe he did get mugged. It’ll explain his missing phone, but not his wallet’s presence. 

Fuck. Jeno’s up too sober for this.

But at the very least, he thinks wryly, he’s not dead in a ditch  _ yet. _

Jeno folds his arm over his eyes, inhaling the smoky scent of cigarette as Donghyuck exhales. 

In the dark, a distinctly familiar face crosses his mind, but Jeno is unable to pinpoint just who it is or where he’s met him. 

He’s beautiful, though Jeno knows that’s not what he should be focussing on. 

The wound on his neck itches and Jeno reaches a hand up to soothe it, fingers fleeting over two small bumps.

A red waves at him from the back of his mind, bringing along a familiar rush of desire.

_ Jaemin. _

Jeno blinks his eyes open. Donghyuck has moved on to the kitchen, putting the beers into his fridge.

Who?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you made it here, thanks for reading!  
> and if you enjoyed it, drops me some kudos and comments im always hungry
> 
> [my twt](https://twitter.com/myhopeandangel) but i dont do anything much on it
> 
> [my previous work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24320245)


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